I found this book while scrolling through Goodreads, trying to find a queer historical romance, which is ridiculously difficult to find, especially when it’s sapphic. Then I noticed the Taylor Swift lyric and was interested immediately. After letting it marinate on my immediate TBR for a good while it was finally time for me to pick it up.

Overall, I really liked the book, it just wasn’t enough to really sweep my off my feet. The writing choice of being in first person present tense and then keep referring to the parents as “Mother” and “Father” or (if in the other FMCs POV as “Lady Demeroven” and “Lord whateverthefuck”) was really … a choice. Until the end I didn’t really know whether Samantha or Cordelia was Gwen’s or Beth’s mother.

The FMCs were fine. At times I found it difficult to differentiate between their inner voices. Gwen was careless and free through the power her father’s financial situation gave her, whereas Beth was stuck up and really had to find a husband. I loved the development of their relationship, though for me they were never really best friends, only friends who yearn for each other very, very much.

I feel like mentioning their parents’ relationships here is also necessary, and I can’t believe I am saying this, I wish we would’ve gotten some chapters from their perspective. Did they know about their daughters’ plans? How are they feeling rekindling their relationship from twenty years ago? What changed, what didn’t? This way they only felt like puppets in the grand scheme of Gwen and Beth (which was absolutely not thought through on their accounts but what do you have).

This book is Victorian in the sense that Bridgerton is Regency. It’s a nice backdrop (mainly used to complain about hoops — don’t think I have forgotten about the CONSTANT complaining about the FUCKING HOOPS!) but I found the discussion about the Marriage Act or whatever it was called a really nice touch (giving women the right to divorce). At first I thought it would be just used as a topic to discuss, to set the scene but in the end I was really invested in it. Beth’s mother lashing out at Lord Ashford at the end was absolutely satisfying, and I am glad his wife got her divorce.

In general, the discussions about the role of women at that time were well-done. Not particularly in depth, but in the end this is a primarily romance-focused book and not a historical fiction, so I am content with it.

I think in the end, there was just too much focus on the parents without ever giving them proper spotlight which bothered me. Somehow we focused on them too much and not enough. Halfway through the book I genuinely forgot why we were doing all that matchmaking (so that Beth doesn’t have to get married) And it was too long, at times it dragged on and we went from picnic to race day to promenading without ever anything really happening.